Neil Peart, iconic drummer for the Canadian rock group Rush, set out on a pilgrimage last fall.
He flew from Los Angeles to Montreal, where he picked up his motorcycle and headed east. Hours later, he roared up to a red metal building on the Saint John River in rural New Brunswick.
Mr. Peart spent a day touring cymbal-maker Sabian Ltd., and the result has been a design and marketing collaboration. Sabian now manufactures Mr. Peart's line of Paragon cymbals, priced from about $300 to $500 a unit.
"It's selling very well," said Sabian owner Robert Zildjian, 81-year-old heir to a family craft tradition that has journeyed from 17th-century Turkey to modern New Brunswick.
Mr. Peart is among the legions of percussionists who have, over four decades, made the trek to the sleepy village of Meductic, N.B. They come to see Sabian's metal-working process and thrill to its epic history of warring brothers, family dislocation, and a cast of characters that range from the sultan of Turkey to the sultans of swing, jazz drummers Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich.
Sabian's day-to-day operations are handled by Dan Barker, the company's 55-year-old president, but Mr. Zildjian happily admits that he interferes. "I'm a pain in the neck at times. I like to see what is going on because Sabian is my child." (Mr. Zildjian and his wife, Willie, also have three flesh-and-blood offspring, Sally, Bill and Andy-- thus the name Sa-bi-an.)
The company is bouncing back from a downbeat year in 2003, when the SARS epidemic and U.S. nervousness over war and terrorism toned down sales of musical instruments, leading to level revenues at Sabian after years of double-digit growth. This year, Sabian says it is beating out a growth rhythm again.
After the death of his father, Avedis, in 1979, Mr. Zildjian split bitterly with his older brother, Armand, who controlled the family's cymbal company in Norwell, Mass.
In the split, Robert was able to take some assets from Avedis Zildjian Co., including its small Canadian plant in Meductic, which became Sabian. Twenty-two years later, the Sabian and Zildjian companies are battling for the loyalty of the world's percussionists, with a combined 60 to 70 per cent of the quality cymbal market.
The Sabian people say they make more units, more than 900,000 a year, but the Zildjian company generates more revenue.
"Sabian and Zildjian compete vigorously," said former Sabian executive David McAllister, who now runs Latin Percussion, a U.S. distributor of musical instruments. Because the overall market has grown, both companies have been able to prosper, he said.
Robert Zildjian, still hurt by the split with his now-deceased brother, says his 140-employee company is more profitable than its rival, based on annual sales of $30-million to $35-million. He has no contact with Craigie Zildjian, Armand's daughter, who now runs the family firm, although he did speak to Armand before his death two years ago.
That feud seems far removed from the peaceful village of frame houses that Sabian now calls home.
The plant buildings are a percussionist's paradise as the cymbals pass through the metal-working process, based on the secret Zildjian method for combining copper and tin.
Cymbals are hammered, often by hand, into subtle hills and valleys of sound. For a drummer, the relationship can be intensely personal, said Mr. Barker, himself a former bubble-gum-rock drummer from Weymouth, Mass.
The final production area involves testing and packaging, where a couple of workers bang away on performance sets, creating jazzy riffs that sound more fitting for a smoky basement in Greenwich Village than a modern factory.
The Sabian website lists an all-star lineup of professional users, including Phil Collins, Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and musicians who support country crooner Lyle Lovett, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and an army of marching bands.
The Zildjian saga contains obvious parallels to the breakup of the McCain brothers, founders of the McCain Foods Ltd. French fry empire in nearby Florenceville, N.B. Mr. Zildjian jokes that if only brothers Harrison and Wallace McCain had come down to see him, he might have saved them some lawyers' bills.
The Zildjian clash had its origins in Constantinople in 1623 when Robert Zildjian's Armenian ancestor, an alchemist named Avedis, was appointed cymbal-maker to the Turkish sultan. In the early 20th century, a later Avedis Zildjian, fleeing Turkish oppression of Armenians and linked to a plot against the Turkish ruler, escaped to the United States.
He brought the old family business to Massachusetts in the late 1920s, only to be greeted by the Depression. He was saved by jazz, and relationships with drummers such as Mr. Krupa and Mr. Rich. Then, in 1964, Beatlemania hit and cymbal crashes became part of a rock 'n' rollers' repertoire.
Avedis's death left sons Armand and Robert at odds. But Robert knew New Brunswick, having fished and hunted in the Miramichi.
In the 1960s, he had opened the family's Meductic plant to get around British Commonwealth duties. The plant made money, he liked the people, and he took it in the settlement.
Along the way, he found Mr. Barker, a former manager with the Avedis Zildjian Co., who had been a casualty of the family split.
Mr. Barker was running a music store and import company, with limited financial success, when Sabian took him in and moved him to Meductic in 1985.
Today, 90 per cent of Sabian's output is exported with 40 per cent going to the United States. The rising value of the Canadian dollar has hit profits and sales, at a time of big price hikes in copper and tin.
Mr. Zildjian, now a Canadian citizen, said the first response will be to raise U.S. prices. "It's just a thing that has to be done," he said.
He does not foresee a large shift of production to the United States, although Sabian has a distribution centre in Maine. "The only thing we'd ever shift there is cheap beginner stuff to compete with the Chinese and Taiwanese. That means nothing to Canada or even nothing to Sabian."
Mr. Zildjian has recently experienced some medical problems, and even landed in hospital after a bad reaction to heart medication while at his Bermuda home. (He also has residences in Meductic and Maine.)
Having gone through a harsh sibling battle, he has plotted his own succession. Ownership will be split equally among his children, but Andy, who runs the company's U.S. operations, will ultimately call the shots. "If it all boils down to a mess, Andy has the final say."
He says Andy has the people skills, and older brother Bill, who handles artist relations, goes along with that. Sally does not work in the company day-to-day.
Although he regularly gets feelers to sell, Mr. Zildjian said Sabian has a strong future going solo in the growing percussion market. Not that he's satisfied with his market position against the old family company. "In five years, we have to be the No. 1 cymbal of choice, not just with pros, but beginners."